outofphase

Blog about life, people and things nonrelated once so ever to life, people, or things.

Friday, November 11, 2005

update

So, Back to Wallace and Gromitt. It was an excellent film and I thought that the characters were very cute. Noelle:" I didn't know clay could be so cute." I know, I know, for such a long wait with the anticipation mounting as it has my critque was very anti-climatic but what are you going to do. I have begun to get busier as the days go by. I have a night job working as a Baker for Panera from 10pm until usually 7:30am. . . then classes. I don't do much of anything else except work and go to school with visits to see Noelle who makes everything worth it. Noelle and I are planning to get an apartment together in the summer. I can't wait. Ironically her grandmother, who is totally against us being gay but loves me. . . even though she won't admitt it, wants to buy us a bed to go into the apartment. I was talking to her on the last visit to see her, which was last weekend, while Noelle was in the shower she asked me if she could ask a personal question. I said sure no problem and she asked if we would be sleeping in the same bed. Up until this moment Noelle had decided that it be best not to say anything so we didn't but I wasn't going to lie to her and besides I am glad that she asked me instead of Noelle. So, anyway I replied with, a rhetorical yes very calmly. She then asked if a full sized bed would be okay. I replied wih, well we sleep in a twin bed now so that should be great. She laughed and when Noelle found out she was a little nervous and laughing. Me on the hand. . . well it would take Jesus coming back to get me moving. I told Noelle that with her grandmother if you act like everything is calm and normal then she will think everything is calm and normal. This proves to be true. People are like dogs. . . they can sense fear and such. heh. Update more later. Going to Carrabas with Devin

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

This just in

Okay, so I haven't been keeping up on this blog thing but here's an update. I was having car trouble on my old car so I fixed it and then traded it in for a chevy s-10. I will post pics later. Noelle and I celebrated our 8 month anniversary. We are still very happy together and everything is going well. I got a research job through the university that pays up to 900 a week depending on how many projects I do. That's good because I have started incvesting money into my future. I want to have security, stability and of course Noelle. I have been investing in rare metals and that is going well also. I am currently looking for another job because the research job is only for the school terms. I have an interview coming up with wachovia and hopefully I will get that. The most exicting thing, however, is that today is the premiere of The Curse of The Were Rabbit, a Wallace and Gromitt film and Noelle and I have tickets. Wallace and Gromitt is another Mcintire pass a long favorite. Tell you all about the movie on the next entry.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Life: Continued

Here I am, sitting, waiting patiently with only a touch of ambivolence. The secretary who I had spoken to over the phone told me that she would give Dr. Genshaft that I had requested so there was no reason for me to be waiting for her. I retorted with what better way to convey a message then from the original source. She then contested saying that it's just dust and it really wasn't a top priority. I told her what I had found out and she looked confused. I left 45 minutes later because I had a class but let's just say I "verbalized" my opionin loud and clear. After that English and then a much needed Rugby practice. By the time I got out of English it was raining and I was in dress clothes. I stopped by the women's public restroom which is never a good thing for me. I always get the looks and the stares and the not so occasionaly question of if I belong there. I have gotten to the point now where I just cup my breast and tell them I am in transition. Yesterday, however, I wasn't in the mood so I just told them very politely that it was none of their fucking business. After my confrontation I walked to my car as rain began to pour on my clothes soaking me, making my shirt and pants stick to me as thought they had been glued. I walked to my car and drove to the theatre building where I had to meet my Electronic Music professor in the Sycom Lap. So from the car I ran to get to his office before he left. I had a duffle bag so that I could change after the meeting. My duffle bag broke as I was running and from that point I just stood there. I think I must have stood there for 5 minutes, like a child that had just been punished. I begrundgedly picked up the duffle bag and continued running. I got to his office to discover that he had only remember to bring one of the items out of the two I emailed him about. I was still greatful. I then went to Rugby practice which was almost canceled, not because of rain, but because a lot of people just decided they didn't want to show up until last minute. I practiced really hard and then in the end felt my hamstring pull and it hurt like hell. I was so angry I just kept running. After practice I was almost in tears, but it was worth it. I felt much lighter, that is until I got in the car. I turned the car on, heard a noise, turned the car back off, and realized that my thermostat was overheated so I needed water in the radiator. I did just that with my water bottle, walking on my hurt leg. I only did enough to get me home though. I talked for a bit and then out of nowhere Noelle shows up. I was so excited. In fact it's the only that has gone right yesterday and today. I followed her home this morning at 5:30 AM because I wanted to make sure she'd get home alright. Well I should say we went to bed around 2am but I couldn't sleep so here I am driving at 5:30am with no sleep. The car starts acting up again and on the interstate I pull over into a rest station, put more water in and keep going...I know I am not supposed to do that. I get to sarasota and it breaks down on a major road. From there this young cop and myself pushed the car into the carwash nearby. That's where I am now, sitting in the car wash in my pajamas typing this blog to help pass the time so that I can put water in the car and it actually accomplish something. So the moral of this story kids is 1: Always allow for traffic, 2: never wait to do anything and when you do don't do it half ass...do it full ass, and 3. When your car overheats wait until it cools down to put water in the radiator or else the water will boil and create steam which means your car will overheat again. One more thing...never underestimate life because just when you get comfortable and you think you've got it all figured out mother earth will let you know otherwise. Life is like a scrum, a lot of people grabbing you and pulling you different directions so that you can achieve one goal, to get the ball going. Okay, it's 9:02 and I've been here since 7:45am I think it's safe to put water in. I still haven't slept.

Life: A comedian

At this point in my young adult life I am not really sure what I believe in, however, I am most definitely sure that whatever it, or who, is hates me right now. The past two days have been, for lack of a better phrase...fucking horrible. Yet still, me being as cynical as I am I find humor in all of my distress and torment. It all started in a cold day, somewhat like this...nevermind, that's another story. Basically yesterday I had to take the reins as an activist again which I am not incredibly happy about as I like to keep a low profile. I found out why my allergies are acting up. It's because there is a seriously dangerous level of dust located conviently in the air conditioning vents. Excuse me, intake valves. This would normally be a very story but for the sake of everyone's sanity, INCLUDING MY OWN, I will downsize it considerably...once upon a time. So I went to the office and told them that I was sick even though I was taking medication perscribed by my physician for my allerigies that has little effect since this is the second time I've been sick in 4 weeks. They, the office knomes, told me that I just wasn't used to the conditions. I was a little angry at this comment, but I calmly asked about the air conditioning units and the possibility that there is build up or mold. The knome that I had been conversing with said that that wasn't possible because the filters in my building are changed once a month. So I waslked away feeling as though I were dumb for asking. When I arrived back at my apartment a thought hit me like a mighty rushing wind, as most things that happpen to me do. I looked at my room and realized that I had been dusting every single day and yet still after dusting there was large amounts of dust. I went to the air intake vent and unscrewed the cover with the dyke survival kit I got for christmas, my tool set, and discovered that there was at least a 1/2 inch of dust on every panel from top to bottom. I cleaned the vent out and saved the dust. I put in a work order to have maintenance clean out the ducts. I wasn't ahppy with that though so then I called the President of the University's office, Judy Genshaft, and got her secretary. I asked to speak to the president directly, but that wasn't possible because here Genshaft is the pope. The secretary directed me to someone who she thought could help. They weren't i nthe office so she said she'd a message. I gave her my 15 spiel about life and dust and how it's all relevant to death. I wasn't happy with that so I wrote an email to the adminstrative assistant to the president again giving the speech. Maintenance showed up an hour later, very disgruntled, as I was, and told me that I was not allowed to open the vents in the first place and that cleaning out the ducts was not the problem because they cange the filters and besides it wasn't in their job discription. I bought a filter for my apartment vent and the men told me that I wasn't allowed to have it because it would mess up the system. The one that couldn't speak English, said something along the lines of the dust that I collected from the vent was the dust that was already inside the apartment and it wasn't coming from the ducts and so it was "filtering." I became even more agitated with this than anything that had previously happened and like a bird I wished I could fluff out my feathers and squak. That I did, The feathers no...I had a nice shirt on. After the men left I went to my Chemistry lab and explained to my professor my dilemma and wondered if he could help in finding out all the components of the dust that I had collected. I used water diffusion and microscopic analysis to discover that the dust contained mold spores .2 x the normal allowance and he usual skin cells, hair cells, dead white cells and so on. I printed a lap copy of this and had my professor sign off saying that all the information was proven true and correct. I went to Dr. Genshaft's office...Evidence clutched in hand. I held my infalable evidence in typed black ink and a single signature.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

American Composers for 500

As I was saying The interesting part is that the notes in this piece are silent. David Tudor, who was supposedly a very skilled technical pianist in the 50's, I don't know if he's is still alive, performed this piece. When he did he simply went over to the piano, lifted the lid and set the stopwatch. When the time determined by Cage had passed he would close the piano lid, reopen it, and then begin to "play" the next movement. As the titled suggests the piece is 4 minutes and 33 seconds long and consisted of three movements. Since the 1950's there have been a few "recordings" of this silent piece. How about those apples! I have to say that I agree with many of cages perceptions and ideas about music and the theories he had about the way people listen to music.

"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" --John Cage

"I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.' " --John Cage

"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." --John Cage.

"Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?" --John Cage

If you are interested in hearing some pieces by John Cage, and you should be, go to http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage.html. This site has some samples, not all musical and by far not cages most eccentric works, that will give you a better understanding of how cage's mind works in creating abstract compositions that stretches the already broad rubric of what music really is.

American Composer for 200

I got out of my electronic music class about an hour ago and it was interesting to say the least. We took our first exam for which I think I did well *crosses fingers* and I thought that that was going to be it. It wasn't. I listened to Mr. Reller give a lecture about a American Composer by the name of John Cage. From words he sounded intriguing. A man set out to create music from controversial angles and voicing the unintended. So I sat listening for about 30 minutes and then we watched a documentary on him that was an hour and a half long about celebrating his 70th birthday and the music that he has created in his lifetime. The first 20 minutes were good and then my allergies got worse and I got a headache. Cage's music, which consisted mostly of environmental noises, percussion instruments, and voice combined together, made it hard for me to concentrate. You see very few people actually LISTEN to music. I have a weird way of listening to music. I don't know if anyone else does this but here is how I do it. When I listen to music I tend to isolate each note from the next and also isolate voices from other voices. So if there is a violin trio and I am listening to it, I can easily pick out who is playing what and single them out to only hear their part if I want to. This is good when you are ear training or you want to learn how something is played and you don't want to hear anything else. HOWEVER, it is not especially good while listening to John Cage. One piece we listened to had mesotics, a radio, a female vocalist, two hand drummers, a piano, and a violin. I was just not in the state of mind to be able to logically process all of that at once. The piece captures your attention, but not as much as the piano pieces he composed. He wrote this piece that many call the composition of his lifetime that was titled 4'33" which is a piece that he conjured up from using I Ching, properly pronounced E Ching, eastern practice kind-of like fortune telling, where you toss 3 coins 6 times and get a series of numbers between 1 and 64. He used this to determine the duration that each note in this piece would last. That's not the interesting part though. The interesting part was that...continued on next blog.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Security Device Enclosed

Okay it's 3 something in the morning and I am extremely tired but I can't sleep. I think I am getting sick too. My nose is stuffed and I have a headache but it could just be allergies. I dust my dorm room everyday but it seems dust still accumulates in piles upon the hour. I am listening to "Am I Awake" by They Might Be Giants right now. It's upbeat which is probably not helping the insomnia thing but oh well. I don't have class until 7pm tomorrow. Today was Chemistry and psychology. In psych we took our first test. I finished it in 30 mintues max...multiple choice. I don't know for sure how I did but I think I did well. I studied if that accounts for anything. Tomorrow is one of two of my favorite classes...electronic music, which we have a test in. My professor Paul Reller has agreed to let me borrow his Pain Teens CD so that I can listen to a couple songs on it before I buy it from Germany. I know I like two songs, "The Way Love Used to Be and desu evol yaw." The first song is the original version and the second song is the original version but completely backwards. It's really neat. I can't wait until tomorrow, well, I guess since it's 3, later on today. I am planning on maybe watching a movie and trying to fall asleep to that. I need my girlfriend. I know it sounds childish or whatever you want to call it but having her around calms me down enough so that I can sleep. I wish I could bag the happiness I have when I am with her and carry it around always. I opened my tea box today to drink some sleepytime extra with valeria that I haven't opened since August and inside she had written me a note telling me that she loved me and that she hoped that drinking the tea would help me sleep in place of having her. It's the little things that are important. It means a lot to me that we do things like that for each other. Love is the one thing that I cannot buy at Wal-mart. =)

Monday, September 19, 2005

Still Thinking

I never wrote about what happened yesterday or what fueled my previous entry. Yesterday, Noelle and I went to Busch Gardens. We decided that it might be a good idea to walk the 5 miles there because gas is high and it's right across the street from USF. Nothing much was said on the way there but on the way back it was different. We were both tired and we wanted something to talk about to make the walk seem shorter. So we dabbled on a few topics and then we started talking about why I wanted to go to Arcadia, my hometown, this Friday to watch my old marching band perform. The reason I said I wanted to go is because I wanted to talk to my old band director about some things. She asked what about and so I began to talk about how I really wanted to take lessons and that I needed them if I ever wanted to become skilled on my band instrument, trombone. However, you can't get instruction at USF unless you are enrolled in the School of Music. As it is currently I am in the Arts and Sciences and am on Music probation. I can use the practice rooms but I can't fully work on my major until I audition again. The next audition is in January, but I have no idea what I should pick to showcase the trombone. The last time I auditioned I auditioned on two things, voice and trombone. The voice went fine. I got a scholarship and everything but the trombone didn't go as well, so they decided that overall I should get probationary status because I listed trombone as my primary instrument. I think that maybe I should audition in January on voice only as a music education major and get in that way. In some ways though I feel as though I failed because I used to practice a lot on the trombone and very little on voice and it made no difference. I was in the piano room the other day and I was playing some and thought to myself that I missed playing the piano like I used to. I used to go to school at 6 in the morning sometimes to be able to practice my silly little method books on the school piano. After that I would usually sit under the piano and press keys over and over again just listening to the vibrations until the stopped. Music is the only thing that has kept me alive over my lifespan and many times when I was younger and in bad situations music is what helped me through because it was calming and it made sense. In all the choas and depression and frustration that the world has to offer music is what makes that worth dealing with. I even wrote in my diary on the day that I bought my piano. My dad wouldn't buy me one because he said that I was going to give it up, so I bought one on my own and still today it is the one possession I value most. I took my presidential academic award that I got in grade school out of its frame and put in my participation award from my first piano recitial for which I played "Baby Skunk, and "Old Woman" playing the first piece in the wrong octave and in the wrong key. I've never been so happy then I was when Michelle McIntire, my ex-piano teacher and now friend said "good job." Music is my logic, my tranquility, my life and science is my "destiny."

Thinking

There are times when you think that you have it all figured out. You prime your entire life to be someone and then you get the opportunity to and you realize that what you thought you were meant to is just a distraction from what you want to do. I am confused about my career choice as it stands and I am not really sure how to logically think through it. I am a double major but I am more science than music. I always thought that I was meant to be a doctor. I am doing well in all of my science classes and I have no reason to be unsure but as I have begun to think more about my future and my past I have realized three things: One is that all of the people that I consider to have had the most influence on me and whom I care about the most are musicians, two is that the effect these people have had on me is the effect that I eventually want to have on someone else, and three that since I have started college my interest and enthusiasm for music has grown considerably and my interest in the sciences has dimenished dramatically. I don't understand though. Music comes way harder for me then science does. I don't know what to do. I feel like Either way I am going to let someone down and more importantly that person would be me.

A Picture Says A Thousand Words

Of Course You Want To...

My name is Ashley Garcica. I am a undergrad student at the University of South Florida in Tampa with a double major in Biomedical sciences and Music Education. I have no pets but I do have a girlfriend who keeps me company. I like long walks from my bedroom to the kitchen. I also like to burn calories from eating by playing rugby. In short, I am currently not doing anything amazing or interesting which is why I have time to create this blog.